Wanderlust
by Horrorxxxgirl
Summary: My taken on the fifth episode of the first year. When Harley Tutuola's uncle is found dead, gagged by a pair of female underwear, suspicion first falls on Harley's aunt, and then to Harley's teenage cousins.
1. Chapter 1

The siren whooped as the car slid between the apartment buildings of New York. It slid to a stop on the outskirts of a crowd, wrangled away by the bright canary of police tape. The door opened, allowing the loud police radio chatter to fall to the cement under the driver's feet. The driver shut the door and ducked under the sunshine ribbon. He flashed his badge at a police man. "Fin Tutuola. Sex Crimes," he spoke. "What happened?"

"Vic is a James F. Loouel. 52," said the officer, leading Fin into the apartment then upstairs. Loouel. His wife's maiden name. They entered an apartment building filled with the clicking shutters of cameras. An overweight man, who looked to be a decade older than 52, lay in a chair. His throat was a deep plum purple and black electric tape covered his mouth.

"Who the Hell is that?" snapped a woman.

"Mrs. Loouel, that's my partner and my husband, Detective Tutuola," spoke Fin's partner to a blonde woman who had her head down. She sat on a stool. A cigarette in one hand and a martini in the other.

Mrs. Loouel glared up at his partner. "I'm Abby to you, Harley!" she snapped. He nodded his head. The famous loving Aunt Abby that Fin had heard so much about. "And you didn't tell me you married a ni-"

"I get it Abby, you're going through a hard time. I was just doing my job," said Harley. She lowered her voice, making it hard for Fin or anyone else to hear them. "But don't you ever dare bring up my husband's skin color! Who cares if he's black, white or yellow?"

Abby didn't say another word to Harley. Harley helped her aunt up, off the stool. "Welcome to my house," she sighed.

Harley walked over to her husband. "She found the body," said Harley, leaving very few inches between herself and her partner.

"Is that your uncle?" asked Fin. Harley nodded. "And is Abby his girlfriend? Or wife?"

"Legal aunt. She lives here with my two cousins, Sandra and Leo," said Harley.

"Where are they?"

"Leo is at swim practice," said Harley. "And Sandra-"

"She's out," said Abby coming up to them. "He was the best father. Clean, quiet, always gave the kids what they needed. He was an excellent lover to."

Fin smiled. Maybe she was calming down and maybe, just maybe, if he made Abby feel good in this bleak time, maybe they could have a relationship. "I hope to one day be as good as a dad as your husband was," said Fin. Fin gave a small smile to Harley.

Abby grunted and growled before whisking her all important fat ass out of the room. Harley put her hands up. "I was raised by racists," she said. He smiled at her, letting her know it was all right. Odafin knew that Harley and Abby had always had a strained relationship. Fin also knew Harley didn't have a single racist bone in her body. "Has anyone gotten the story of my uncle?"

"We found a block of cocaine in the chair next to him," said the police officer.

"Want to tell me something I didn't all ready know?" asked Harley as she snapped on latex gloves. She peeled off the black tape and placed it in a bag marked evidence.

"He had a book that he authored on the end table," said the cop. Uncle James wrote a book? Since when? When did this happen? And where was Harley? "A travel book."

Harley saw something red in her uncle's mouth. Not blood. A soft red. She stuck a gloved hand in and pulled out a pair of red, lacy panties.


	2. Ideal

"I heard Kosovo is beautiful this time of year," said Harley, placing the book back down on Fin's desk. She had only thumbed through it but got the general idea that Kosovo was a big part of her uncle's book. Harley slid the book towards Munch. "Look at this."

Munch picked up the book and studied it. On the back was a photo of Harley's uncle James, wearing nothing but a speedo. "Nice to know there are still books out there which Colleen will never read," said Claudia Munch, behind her husband.

"It's good to know the macho Hemingway ideal isn't entirely dead in this weepy age," noted Munch, studying the back of the book.

Mrs. Munch chuckled, giving her husband a kiss behind his ear. "No," Claudia chuckled. She rolled her eyes. "Still as toxic as ever."

"The last trip Loouel took was during a Chiapas uprising," said Fin, leaning back in his chair. "Rode his motorcycle right through it."

"The narrows down the reasons why someone would want to kill this accidental tourist," said the captain. "He could have been running drugs, written the wrong thing about the wrong country."

"Don't think so," said Munch, cracking the book open. "'I realized it was not the destination that mattered to me as much as the journey itself. It is the insatiable drive to keep moving forward that propels me.' His wanderlust is one adverb short of Robert James Waller."

"The Bridges of Madison County," sighed Claudia, shaking her head. Munch nodded.

"That was incredible!" smiled Elliot.

"How about incredibly banal?" asked Munch, narrowing his eyes. "Short and muscular sentences displaying total absence of original thinking."

"I was talking about the movie," sneered Elliot.

The captain looked at Fin and Harley. "What do you guys got?"

"My uncle had a clean record," said Harley. She sighed. "Married for 10 years after his first marriage ended after two months, his first wife runs a coffee shop here in town."

"They've only lived in New York for two years," said Fin.

"James was an ideal father. An ideal husband but he was gone for long periods of time," said Harley. She sounded like she detested the idea of James being ideal.

"Think he can still be the ideal person from the great beyond?" asked Munch.

"Time of death, early evening," said Harley, ignoring Munch. "No sign of forced entry. The body was left in plain view. C.O.D.- from blunt force trauma."

"And the weapon is where?" asked the captain.

"Still missing," said Fin. He produced a baggie with the red panties. "But we do have this cap."

Munch snagged the bag away from Fin. "Top of the line," said Munch to Claudia. "Mmm, nice panties."

"I bet whoever wears those feels really sexy," cooed Claudia, moving them around in the bag.

Munch snaked an arm around her waist. "Would you like daddy to buy you a pair after work?" he purred. "You can model them for him."

"So! Uh! Harley! Was uncle James a he/she?" coughed Elliot.

"He was a writer," said Fin. Claudia gave him a dirty look. She was a writer.

"What about the tape over the vic's mouth?" asked the captain. The entire place now was covered in an awkward blanket.

"No prints. No roll of that type of tape was found in the house," said Fin. "Taping the mouth shut, the panties in the throat both suggest the killer had a personal agenda."

"To embarrass the hell out of him," sneered Munch.

"Or to shut him up," said Olivia. "Are you sure Mrs. Loouel is who we think she is."

"Olivia, I'm related to her and I don't even know if I'm sure who she is," laughed Harley. "Last night she was inon compos mentis/i. Me and the husband, we're gonna talk to her again, today."


End file.
